How Quality Data Can Help You Prepare for the Holiday Rush

Online shopping has been on the rise for years, but the pandemic accelerated its growth significantly. Add this to the peak holiday shopping season, and retailers and ecommerce businesses could find themselves overwhelmed by customer demand.

Digital Commerce 360 Retail recently sat down with Melissa’s VP of Marketing, Greg Brown, to talk about the importance of early preparedness for retailers for the holiday season. Here are some of the key takeaways from his interview:

• Start by cleaning out your contact data with a data cleansing solution. Make sure that all of your stale, outdated data is replaced with verified, accurate information such as replacing old addresses for people who have moved and adding new emails or phone numbers. You can also use mailing lists to find more of your target audience—just make sure that you are picking the correct criteria to find your ideal prospects.
• Customers want a seamless experience with efficient delivery. Next-day and two-day delivery implementation is in high demand. Making sure that addresses are verified and standardized at checkout with an autocomplete tool is critical to ensure this time frame is met. Not only does a verified address at checkout make sure the address is deliverable, it also cuts down on keystrokes by up to 75%, making the customer experience quicker and easier.
• Offering bundles and cross-selling to existing customers is more cost efficient than finding new ones. The holiday season is the perfect time to do this, since customers are most likely shopping for others. Profiling your data can give you a better understanding of your customer base and best-selling products, which can help you create more effective marketing strategies.
• Matching and deduping your data will clean your database, allowing you to see a complete, 360-degree view of each customer. This will also help you have a better understanding of each customer, allowing for more personalized marketing and a better customer experience.

These tips can help you increase ROI, reduce waste and costs associated with lost and undeliverable packages, and improve customer satisfaction. If you're interested in reading the full interview and getting more insight on how online retailers are getting ready for the holiday season, you can check it out here! 

Since 1985, Melissa has specialized in address verification and data quality solutions. For more information on our global address verification solutions, data cleansing, or high-quality mailing lists and sales leads, visit www.melissa.com or call 1-800-MELISSA. Don't forget to subscribe to our blog for everything related to data quality!